Asterix and the Class Act

Asterix and the Class Act (French: Astérix et la rentrée gauloise) is officially the thirty-second album of the Asterix comic book series, by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations and some stories), published in 2003. Unlike the other Asterix books it is a compilation of short stories, rather than one long story. Each story has an introductory page giving some of its original history.

Only one of these stories (Chanticleerix) is completely original in this album, the remainder are reprinted from earlier sources, most notably the Frenchcomic “Pilote”.

Most of these stories have had only very limited distribution prior to this publication. In 1993 there was an earlier, smaller collection also called La Rentree Gauloise which was only available in French. It also contained a story called ‘L'Antiquaire’(The Antique Dealer) as filler which was not by Goscinny nor Uderzo, does not fit with the other stories and contains two recycled and out-of-character villains. That story has not been reprinted, but otherwise Class Act is an expanded, updated version of this.

Even earlier, in the mid-1980s, a promotional collection of some of these stories appeared in a number of translations (but not English) as Astérix mini-histoires (Asterix Mini-Stories).

Contents

Stories

Originally an announcement page for Asterix and the Big Fight — the village chief holds a modern press conference for the up-coming stories (parodying the contemporary press conferences of then-president Charles de Gaulle).

( 1977 - En 50 avant J.C. ) - 3 pages.First published in the May 1977 issue of National Geographic Magazine for an article on the history of Celtic people. Appeared in the original “La Rentree Gauloise” and “Astérix mini-histoires”

Dogmatix helps the village rooster (national bird of France) defeat an eagle (symbol of Rome) that is terrorizing the local animals.